I’m a crap blogger…and I’m OK with it.

Over the past 4 years of blogging I have enjoyed what to me felt like little successes.
I’ve been lucky enough to be part of some blogging circles that I treasure dearly and I hope I continue to be part of them.
I’ve been nominated for awards. Not those little ones where other bloggers nominate you and you tag 7 of your friends, I mean actual awards. That’s awesome!
I’ve WON an award! Well OK it was for a podcast and it was me and three other guys but without my blog I wouldn’t have been lucky enough to a part of that.
As part of the podcast team I was asked to speak at Britmums which was pretty darn cool.
(We will probably never be asked back and they no longer pass out that award anymore, which could or could not be to stop us winning again! lol)
I have had the opportunity to see some places and review some great products which again I wouldn’t have had without my blog.

All that in mind I recently came to the recent realisation that I’m a pretty crap blogger.
I don’t have a massive following
I don’t blog nearly as often I as I could.
Any posts I do write are pretty basic and never get a great deal of reaction/comments.
But guess what…I’m ok with that.

I don’t actually know what it means to be a good blogger anymore?
Is it a big following?
Is it a blog full of PR statements/reviews/sponsored posts?
Is it a blog full of diary type entries?
Is it a mixture of all of these things?
I just don’t know anymore.
Please don’t mis-understand. I know great blogs and great bloggers that have all or some of the above elements but I also know some blogs that go a little too far.

I do know that I still enjoy having my little blog and I don’t plan on completely giving up anytime soon but with my lack of posts recently and my lack of nominations in the Britmums BiBs this year I feel that I’m a pretty crappy blogger and yes….I’m Ok with that.

I see so many great blogs that churn out great posts all the time and I just wonder how they manage to have such great blogs? I am at home all day with the kids and don’t have a massive social life but I don’t feel I have the time or the content to produce regular posts. It’s obviously a skill I don’t have!

This isn’t a ‘Woe is me’ post in fact it’s far from it. It’s a post about being cool with the kind of blogger you are and not having any pressure to be like others.
Would I like more readers? Hell yeah!
Would I like more PR opportunities? probably..I could damn sure use the money!
Do I wish I was a better writer…of course.

So tell me readers (If anybody actually reads this) what do you think a great blog should be about?
Tell me your secrets! Teach me Obi-Wan!

Before I sign off I mentioned earlier that I wasn’t shortlisted for this years BiB awards. Although it’s very expected and understandable I still can’t help feel dissapointed…which is a little weird but there are some amazing bloggers (including some cool dad blogs) nominated so go take a look. You might just find one of these great blogs I’ve been talking about! Congrats to all those shortlisted.

And to ANYBODY who reads this, I truly do appreciate your time. Now go do something productive!
As always, thanks for reading.
L

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14 comments

People gage success with different things, the real measure is if you enjoy you blog. If you stop enjoying it and find it a chore then it’s not worth the hassle. Blogging is meant to be fun. I haven’t got the balance right between online life and offline but it’s important not to let online control what you do.

Because you haven’t been shortlisted or asked to write this or that doesn’t for one second mean that you’re not a good blog or that people don’t enjoy your blog.

Never forget that we won an award…in fact we were the last winners of that award, we were so damn good they had to retire that category.

Yeah we won an award and I am forever grateful for that but my blog didn’t win it. My writing didn’t win it.
With regards to enjoing it thats what I mean about having no pressure. I have found that balance if you can call barely blogging becasue im too busy offline.
Some people have to blog for money some do it for nothing but getting stuff off their chest but yet feel they have to produce output.
It’s hard to be motivated when you see so many people better than you over and over again.

I completely agree with Darren. If you’re happy doing what you do, then you are achieving everything you need and everything else is window dressing.

How people choose to define what success looks like is entirely up to them – everyone does it differently – and you don’t need to win or even be nominated for an award to feel validated. But if you’re still enjoying blogging after four years, that’s a big achievement in itself.

Does it matter whether your blog is followed by 10 or 10,000 people? Only if you’re trying to earn a living from it, I think. Think of your following as being small but perfectly formed. (That’s my official party line, anyway …)

I want to be a better writer, I want to have more readers and I want the blog and me to be better well known.
Therefore based on my measurement I am a crap blogger.
I blog for me and I do enjoy it but sometimes i feel like im screaming but nobody is listening….if thats the case I sometimes think it’s better to be quiet.
I sound like such a whiney little blogger! lol

There’s nothing I can say that Darren or Tim haven’t said, but if you’re a crappy blogger I must be truly awful. There’s a massive difference between a commercial blog, a personal blog, and a therapeutic blog. Each one needs to be tailored accordingly and their measure of success defined independantly. For what it’s worth (very little I’m sure) I think you’re a successful blogger.

Again, I have to echo all of the above (cop-out stock answer sorry :-/). On a serious note, I believe if your blog still means more to you than anyone else then your doing well, which after 4 years of blogging, to still be doing it, must mean it does.

I’m often amazed and astounded by the sheer volume of not only well written, but also engaging and perfect photo’s bloggers are able to churn out post time and time again, but you know what, I begin to bore of those at times (whether through blogger envy or just everything seems “too perfect”).

For me, its the blogger who might not write a great deal, have the best photo’s all the time but produces something once in a while which comes straight from the heart and is on point which really engages me.

This is one of those, an honest post which I can so relate to even in my short 6 months blogging, the important thing is you get the time right with your family and blogging will always come secondary to that, if that means a post every 6 weeks, well it’s 6 weeks you’ve spent with your family or doing equally important stuff.

Thanks for the reply.
That’s my aim I think. Simply to not feel pressured anymore. Maybe that will spur me on to blog more or even blog about things people might not be interested in (Another thing that stops me blogging is wondering who cares!) but if it doesnt spur me on then thats cool too.
Thanks again.
L

I love that the daddy bloggers have been commenting on this post, it says a lot about the blogging community.

To be honest I think quite a few of us were a bit gutted when the list was published yesterday and we weren’t on it. But the awards really are no indication of how good your blog is. As you said – you still enjoy writing it after four years, and that’s the main thing.

I too get a bit despondent over the sheer amount of style over substance in blogging. All fur coat and no knickers as we used to say in the East End, before life went PC-bonkers 😉

Who cares what you blog…..does it matter who cares? Does it matter who reads it?? You blog cose you have something to say & you put it out there. If it gets read, then that’s a bonus. Blog because you wanna blog and no other reason. If it’s meaningful & personal to you I think people will enjoy reading it more than if it’s planned & plotted.

Hi there. Just came across this! I’ve been blogging for many years and I’ve learned something that might help a bit. The thing is that the awards are nice, they are like the icing on the cake – it’s really nice to get recognition from your peers. We all like to have something “shiny” and say “I won that”. However, at the end of the day most bloggers I know blog to share their experiences with other people – not just their peers. So the measure of a good blog is not by the button/badge/award they have – it’s that people stop by, read, interact and return again and again. It’s easier to link up with other bloggers than it is to go out and find people in the “real world” to read your content. To me, the measure of a good blog is that it’s read, the measure of a GREAT blog is that it’s read by many people who aren’t just peers – that it’s universally appealing. I can see that’s what you have here and you should give yourself a massive pat on the back.

Thanks for your comment and your kind words.
I think what I find hard sometimes is that I try and make sure this blogg is as honest as it can be and not just full of articles that don’t mean anything or 100s of reviews or sponsored posts but then I see posts with exactly those kid of posts and they get much higher views than mine.
My problem is lack of self promotion too. I don’t do a very good job of getting myself about! I’d like to say I can improve but I’ve been blogging for a few years now and I’m still crap! lol

Hello! I’m very new to this and so I’m very definitely a crap blogger in comparison to all the well established blogs out there. I’m really enjoying my journey though and reading so many great posts and ‘meeting’ so many people. If one person feels that one of my posts has struck a cord with them and helped them in any way at all then that makes me feel over the moon 🙂

Everyone blogs for different reasons. I’m with you on the ones where you see blog post after another and them being of really good quality and you go “how?” And then look at mine! :/
I’ve stopped now. I like my content and my blog and all that I do. Saying that though I published a post yesterday where I asked how others do it. Some weeks I feel like super blogger know what I’m doing and I’m on fire. Well at least for my little corner of my world. But other weeks I’m like ‘do I know how to blog? I have nothing and do nothing” and I’m harsh on myself.
Always liked your blog….you were the first daddy blogger I followed as it happens so I always set my standards against you (no pressure) and with that don’t feel pressured because some of us love what you do! Thanks for linking up with us on the #bigfatlinky hope to see you there next week

Hi, Crap blogger I’m also a Crap blogger in fact I would say I’m about as crap as they come with my recent blogging efforts ! I had a period of blogging everyday about a year ago I blogged my heart out did so much but like you say nobody seemed to care. I used to get upset with it, but thinking about it and being honest, taking a series of semi professional photos whilst trying to have quality family time is not a skill i posses neither a skill I ever think I will be able to learn. I always feel my post look so flat because of it but do you know what I don’t care as long as I’m having fun 🙂 Great post